Why do certain attempts of “people power” revolutions fail?
Stellan Vinthagen December 19th, 2009
We have seen many political revolutions the last decades. According to many researchers there are some 30-40 succesful revolutions the last 30 years. For example the overthrough of Milosovic in Serbia, the breakdown of apartheid in South Africa after a massive international and domestic anti-apartheid movement did make the country impossible to govern, and we have seen several cases in the former Eastern Europe in 1989-1990, e.g. Poland and East Germany. And the last couple of years we have seen several similar cases as in Georgia and Ukraine.
But we have also seen a number of serious attempts of similar strategies: popular demonstrations, general strikes, boycott and massive civil disobedience – but with a failure to produce a revolutionary change. E.g. in Burma 1988 and 2007; in Palestine during the late 1980s in the “first intifada”; in China at the Tianamen Square 1989; in Iran this summer and in Belarus during the last election. What do these cases have in common that makes them fail? Or are they all unique cases with special reasons for the failure (so far) in creating a strong enough “people power” that forces the regime to change?
Since this is something we are looking at in our Nordic Nonviolence Study Group, we would be happy if there are any suggestions of literature, factors, processes, or other helpful ideas of how to understand these cases.
- China , Civil Disobedience , Democracy , Nonviolent Action , Police , Protest , Resistance , Resistance Studies , Revolution , Violence
- Comments(5)
- Success comes from broad alliances between different sectors that usually do not cooperate. However, as long as the leading individuals in the government have a strong internal political unity and full control of the “security” apparatus it is difficult to make change.
- Change through People Power Revolution (PPR) requires a certain level of disunity within the ruling government, to make people on the top level to openly change sides. It might be of opportunistic reasons, but that is less relevant.
- Revolutionary change is not something that comes over a few weeks. It is most likely many years of mobilization behind most successful People Power revolutions. Civil society must build itself up, plan and prepare itself to take action at the right time.
- Good balanced leadership is of course very important. It is not just to take to the streets, it must be well timed.
- Influence from foreign powers.
- The social and economic situation must simply be “bad enough” for a large enough group of people.
- Avoiding expressively (in the context) political rethorics.
The example I know best is the overthrow of Marcos in 1986 in the Philippines. It included the factors above: alliances between the Catholic Church (not in itself united), civil society and corporate sector formed after the murder of opposition leader Ninoy Aquino in 1983. Over three years it was a build up of the opposition and a lot of peaceful symbolic resistance to show solidarity (like hanging yellow flags from windoes during demonstrations).
But it required an army mutiny led by General Fidel Ramos to really bring all people out in the streets in Feb 1986 after election fraud. Civil society and the church timed the opportunity to bring down Marcos perfectly.
Marcos tried to hang on during the protests, until Reagan was convinced by his own Embassy in Manila that the US support to Marcos must end. The background for the whole scenario was a disastrous situtation for many people and corruption on unimaginable levels that impoverished people and created huge problems for business.
Finally, Aquinos widow, Cory Aquino, emerged as candidate to lead the country out from its mess. She was widely seen as a non-political “housewife” (an image well-groomed by campaigners, she was a elite businesswoman). Overall, she was not a TRAPO (trad. politician).
Overall, I believe one important aspect of change through People Power is the willingness to also bring in partners in what could be seen as “unholy alliances”. The purpose of PPR is basically one: to bring change. Bringing in other issues will disunite and weaken the PPR. In the Philippines the communists went back to the junglee to continue their armed resistance afterwards, and Cory Aquino supported her landed elite. But the PPR set some political limits on the levels of mismanagement, graft and corruption that the people can accept.
I do not believe that the Iranian protests has ended. But there is a lack of country-wide support to create the change. And the protests were strongly connected to the elections and political preferences. It was too easy for the leaders to divert the interest to the political power interests rather than the issue of election fraud and the challenges Iran actually face.
In Burma the links between the corporate and the political sector (they are the same) hinders this broad mobilization. And the whole systems rests on the power of the enourmous military and security forces – also main economic beneficiaries of the system. Then there is of course the Chinese support. It is a highly controlled and violent environment, while at the same being unpredictable and extremly corrupt. It has to be really bad before ordinary people mobilize against it.
It has to be added that even if many people suffer, there are still many enough who do not suffer desperately, and some of the economic growth trickles down to a miniscule middle class. 40 years of dictatorship has also killed off the civil society very efficiently. Revolutionary leaders are simply put to jail for almost nothing.
You left out Chiapas, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador. A couple of things the movements on your list have in common is they are funded by NED and related operations and when they are successful, they result in neoliberal govts serving the interest of the Washington Consensus. The failures are notable in that they are usually direct actions against the interest of Russia and China who are, of course, hip to the process and have immunized themselves.
Dear Jesus, well I can say that I agree on the problem that these cases are ending up in neoliberal governments and that is a major problem for these cases of succesful political revolutions (i.e. they are only political regime changes, not economic and social revolutions). But also when we look on why some cases not even produce political revolutions, then my question becomes valid.
Regarding your comments I have two problems. Firstly, I am looking for (1) succuesful revolutions in the meaning of non-constitutional regime change, and (2) popular and non-military ones, that rules out all the cases you mention, either because they did not achive a revolution (but an electoral victory, i.e. constitutional regime change, which is normal in any liberal democracy, irrespective if that is an indigenous party as in Bolivia), or because they used military arms in the revolutionary change (e.g. Nicaragua). I am not saying that these cases are less important, I am just posing another question.
Secondly, funding from NED is not explaining much of these revolutions. NED and other US foreign policy agents would like to get rid of the regime in Belarus, Bolivia, Venezuela, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in China, in….etc. But they try and don’t succeed. Money is not enough to create a revolution. If it was, there would be no anti-US government anywhere in the world.
Looking forward to your comments to the question I am actually posing.
Best,
Stellan
Dear Jens, basically I think you are on the right track. There has to be a number of factors that make a difference, and they interact in a complex way. I agree on all your points, also that the uprising in Iran is not over. But I also think the we will see a lot more resistance in Burma during this year, since during 2010 the regime will have their fake election process. The opposition has developed an alternative constitutional proposal, and they will try to resist the “roadmap to democracy” which the military junta calls it. I think your analysis of the Philippines is very interesting and I agree on the important role of the military revolt. I think that is one of the real key mechanisms to research more. HOW is it made possible that the security forces (military, police and security agencies) disobey and show disloyalty? If we can find answers to that much of the problem will be solved.
But after the political revolution, we have the major problem, which Jesus Reyes emphasised: how to avoid the neoliberal economic hegemony after the political revolution? That is maybe even a bigger problem that faces us….?
Best,
Stellan
Dear Stellan and all,
This is indeed an interesting question/research. There is a need to further push the issue of “success” and failure. For example:
What is success in the eyes of the poor South Africans?
What is a failure in the eyes of the Palestinians?
What is success for some, is a failure for others, and the opposite is true.
As far as we take the terms without that examinations, than the questions arises of local, regional, and global factors. There is also a need to examine who is being fought against and what status and resources they have.
Fighting against state like China, is not as easy as fighting against a state like ex-Yugoslavia.
Fighting against apartheid in South Africa, is not as easy as fighting against apartheid in Israel/Palestine.
Yet, again, to understand the meaning of “success”, one needs to listen to voices of people engaged in such struggles.